Tom Kenny aka SpongeBob Squarepants: “Bigger than The Beatles? Amazing!”

Have you ever scared a child by talking to them as SpongeBob SquarePants in real life?

Not intentionally. Occasionally it seems like a good idea, a lot of times it’s at the behest of the parents. “Hey kid, I’m SpongeBob!” and the kid freaks out. As well as SpongeBob being responsible for a lot of happy childhood memories, a big loud man doing the voice in their face is probably going to be responsible for a lot of trauma.

SpongeBob has more than 54 million likes on Facebook – more than Barack Obama and The Beatles.

We’re bigger than The Beatles? That’s amazing. Our creator Stephen Hillenburg didn’t set out to make a cartoon character that would infiltrate the globe.

What was your first impression when told about a cartoon show based on a sponge? Of all sea creatures, sponges aren’t known for their winning personalities.

Yeah, starfish have star power but sponges really don’t. When he showed me the initial drawings I really did fall in love with the character and the concept. It was an amalgam of things I liked – classic Looney Tunes squash and stretch animation, Ren and Stimpy-ish comedy, 1920s and ’30s ukulele music – unlike anything I had seen before.

What did you have in mind when finding his voice for the first time?

SpongeBob at that point was called Spongeboy. There were basic personality traits written down: he’s half a boy half a man, he has a job but he also goes to school, he’s a hyperactive sugared-up kid but he lives alone in a house that, by the way, happens to be a pineapple. When I first did the voice I didn’t expect that I’d be doing it 20 years later.

Besides his name, what else has changed in 20 years?

Everything in Stephen Hillenburg’s pitch was exactly as it turned out to be. He really had the cake fully baked in his mind – no pun intended. SpongeBob works in a fast food restaurant for a boss based on a real boss and fast food place Stephen had worked at in his past. Believe it or not, in its own surreal way a lot of it is drawn from his reality.

SpongeBob’s second film was released this year, what took you so long to make a sequel?

It was merely an 11-year gap. I know there was pressure and we were asked many times to do another movie but they didn’t have a story that warranted being 90 minutes long. It was that rare case of makers of showbiz products having the souls of artists instead of thinking like bean counters.

SpongeBob is just one of many shows you work on. Where else might we have heard you?

I’m the voiceover equivalent of Where’s Wally? See if you can spot the Tom Kenny voice. Generally, I’m working on around eight or nine series at a time. IMDB knows more about what I’m doing than I do. The past week I did Ultimate Spider-Man, Adventure Time, Uncle Grandpa, Clarence, The Powerpuff Girls, Miles from Tomorrowland, Talking Tom and Friends… It’s a very varied, wacky résumé with SpongeBob the flagship of the fleet.

I spotted your one line in Ant-Man!

I’ve only seen the 20 seconds I’m in. I believe I’m the last credit in the movie, referred to as ‘Hideous Rabbit’. It’s a fittingly small part in a movie of small heroes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0lsnsqk4k

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is out now on Digital HD, DVD and Blu-ray